Entreprenuer takes teens under his win

Jul. 25, 2013

Known best for Bitwise Solutions based in Carmel, he delivers web-based solutions for businesses.

He also has a knack for helping the next generation with more new ventures. He spots that serial entrepreneur bent even in 14-year-olds.

He launched Bitwise Fellows, for teenagers to tackle the smaller web design projects that come to Bitwise. The Bitwise Fellows tackle web problems for small businesses the same way some of us used to set up lawn-mowing businesses or delivered newspaper routes.

Now he’s launching a Apprentice University, to offer an alternative to traditional college education. He thinks he can offer work-readiness apprentices to business, at tuition prices well below the ordinary college education.

This alternative higher education builds on the success he has seen with Bitwise Fellows. One of his first fellows, Josh Cunningham, is now working at a startup in Broad Ripple, Mytm8, which provides websites to help coaches run sports teams.

As a Bitwise fellow in high school, Cunningham was responsible for his team’s bottom line so he learned about profit and loss, as well as time management. He also found out about customer satisfaction.

“In high school I got very accustomed to managing my own time, running a small business,” said Cunningham, a recent Purdue graduate. “That self-starter capacity is vital to what I’m doing now. I’m the only full-time person and have to hold myself accountable.”

With his Apprentice University, Brumbarger is moving up the educational ladder to see if he can mentor college students as well as he has done at the high school level. Some universities already have embraced his ideas of apprenticeship and entrepreneurial training, but he hopes to keep costs low to tackle the high tuition/high debt problem.

Like most entrepreneurs, Brumbarger has a history of thinking outside the box. As a teenager, he worked construction in the summer but persuaded his boss to let him create a payroll system. He did it on what was called a Texas Instrument, which only people older than about 45 will remember.

Now he thinks he can take the mentoring skills to the college level, in one of the fastest growing segments of the economy.

Business consultant Mike Evans thinks Brumbarger has found an unusual niche in marrying his skills (web design) with what is often a charitable or civic venture (teen skills training).

“He’s a good example of someone investing in the next generation, yet in a way that makes good business sense,” Evans said. “He helps high school kids synergistically, in the same industry he works in. They learn life skills by running their own business.”

Brumbarger doesn’t think he’ll put the traditional universities out of business. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, he agrees, quoting the title of a Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken.” That just could wind up being the motto of Apprenticeship University.